FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT JAMES ELLROY - PAGE 3

October provided such an unusually good harvest of mysteries that I'm only now catching up with some of the most interesting titles, three of which coincidentally feature cover blurbs from that modern master of noir fiction, James Ellroy. Dust-jacket quotes by writers generally should be accorded the same weight reserved for the plaudits a politician bestows on a fellow party member, but, in these instances, Ellroy has done the consumer a service by anointing a group of fresh voices that deserve to be heard.

By Robert W. Welkos, Tribune Newspapers: Los Angeles Times | September 13, 2006

In his neo-noir mystery "The Black Dahlia," director Brian De Palma brings his camera into a morgue where the remains of the mutilated murder victim, Elizabeth Short, are displayed on an autopsy table. Through the director's lens, we gaze with grim fascination at the grotesqueness of the crime, wondering not only who this woman was and how she met her fate but what twisted mind could carry out such a heinous murder. In real life, Short's remains were discovered Jan. 15, 1947, by a passerby pushing a stroller past a vacant lot in Los Angeles' Leimert Park neighborhood.

If you've read his books or seen the film "L.A. Confidential," then it won't surprise you that a guided tour of James Ellroy's Southern California does not include a stop at Disneyland. For the writer of such prime pulp fiction as "Black Dahlia" and "American Tabloid," it is not a small world after all, but a "crazy, sexed-out, brutal, awful, horrifying, delightful, wonderful place." And, dig it, it's a cool place to visit, but after spending some quality time with the author visiting his old stomping grounds in "James Ellroy: Demon Dog of American Crime Fiction" you might think twice about wanting to live there.

In the early stages of metamorphosing from print to celluloid is "The Big Nowhere," writer James Ellroy's `50s mystery about gangland back-stabbers and McCarthy blacklisters. The story has been optioned by producer Alberto Grimaldi, a man whose previous film forays included Clint Eastwood's "Man With No Name" spaghetti westerns, four Fellini flicks and Marlon Brando's `70s classic, "Last Tango in Paris." Elsewhere in cinema: Sean Young, the extremely lean and lanky actress best known for her limo-erotic performance in 1987's "No Way Out," is lobbying hard for the title role of "Blaze"-all about Louisiana Gov. Earl Long's steamy affair with zaftig stripper Blaze Starr.

Summer is the perfect time to get away from it all, and those mystery lovers unable to leave town at least can take a trip to a different decade. That's because the summer lineup features two long-awaited mysteries by totally dissimilar authors who share one plot device: James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential (Mysterious Press, $19.95) is set in the Los Angeles of 1950. And Stuart Kaminsky's Poor Butterfly (Mysterious Press, $17.95) moves between the Los Angeles and San Francisco of 1942.

Laurene von Klan Executive director, Friends of the Chicago River THE GIFT by Marcel Mauss (Norton) "This book will change the way you shop for gifts and the way you receive them." Anthony Oliver Executive director, Streetwise GLOBAL SQUEEZE by Richard C. Longworth (NTC/Contemporary) "Longworth gives a realistic analysis of the global economy's impact on First World nations." Bill Young Literary escort, Midwest Media GATES OF EDEN by Ethan Coen (Morrow/Rob Weisbach)

Our club is made up of all men ranging in age from 27 to 43. Most of us are business professionals, although we do have a couple of starving artists in the group. We have been meeting monthly in coffee shops on the city's North and South Sides for about four years. One thing to know about us: We are very misanthropic bibliophiles. One favorite book: "Tree of Smoke" by Denis Johnson. We found it to be very well-written, and vague and chaotic much like the Vietnam era it describes.

Summer's for pirates. Autumn brings with it the promise of prestige and Oscar bait, some of it the work of veteran directors: Clint Eastwood (the Iwo Jima story "Flags of Our Fathers"); Martin Scorsese ("The Departed"); Pedro Almodovar ("Volver"); and Brian De Palma, whose true-crime drama "The Black Dahlia," based on the James Ellroy novel, is one of two Hollywood sleaze-and-ambition sagas opening this month. Hollywood loves movies about Hollywood the way a gigolo loves his mirror.

PREMIUM CABLE "THE BLACK DAHLIA" . 9 p.m., MAX Director Brian De Palma ("Scarface") applies his unique visual sense and a top-notch cast to James Ellroy's novel inspired by one of Hollywood's most famous unsolved crimes. A would-be starlet's (Mia Kirshner) murder in the late 1940s draws two detectives (Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart) who are rivals for the same woman (Scarlett Johansson) into the resulting probe. Hilary Swank plays a mystery woman with ties to the victim.